Weird News

123

Because of unexpectedly large crowds visiting the new Hong Kong Disneyland in January, park officials limited admissions for the first eight days, provoking some mothers who had traveled from all over China to show their frustration by trying to climb in, after first tossing their children, including toddlers, over the fence. [WKMG-TV (Orlando), 2- 2-06]
---
Elizabeth Bragg, 23, was convicted in January in Huntington, Ind., when her 4-year-old stepdaughter suffered a car injury. According to the prosecutor, Bragg, intending to punish the girl for misbehaving, told her other kids to "hang on" but then unfastened the belt in the misbehaving girl's car seat, and slammed on the brakes several times, causing the girl to bang her head. [Huntington Herald-Press, 1-4-06]
---
Whoever tried to burglarize the Cell Comm/Nextel store in Victorville, Calif., in March escaped after bungling the job. The store owner told the local Daily Press that the would-be burglar tried to shoot open the door's lock but that the bullet ricocheted and hit him in the chest, knocking him down. The bullet likely did not break the skin but was probably startling and painful, in that the man vomited at the scene before he fled. [Victorville Daily Press, 3-23-06]
---
Adult education teacher Robert Colla was hospitalized in Ventura, Calif., with severe burns and shrapnel wounds, and lost part of his right hand, when he tried to smash a bug with the paperweight on his desk. The "paperweight," which Colla had found years ago, was a 40mm artillery shell, which, unknown to Colla, was still live. [CNN-AP, 4-4-06]
---
Unexpected childbirths happen from time to time, but the genuinely surprised mother in Ojo Caliente, N.M., in February was Kayla Alire, 18, who just two hours earlier had hit two three-pointers as a starting guard for the town's high school girls' basketball team. [The New Mexican (Santa Fe), 3-3- 06]